this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
344 points (95.7% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54443 readers
512 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Even the developer cannot be bothered to release physical copies or pretend to sell them as blank disk copies.

top 48 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He should have it "accidentally leaked" after his computer got "hacked" 😉

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Either he do this or somebody eventually would do it for him.

[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So by saying “Please do not pester my poor Discord mods for a download link!" He means that’s how we get the link, right?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Would like confirmation if this works. I get the sense it’s a joke, but still….

[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would be terrible if he got hacked and the project was leaked

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Not if I stop you! leans back in chair

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Can't be bothered?" That's kind of obnoxious. Of course he can't release a physical copy; Disney would sue him.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Honestly what’s the point of even releasing videos or showing it off if all it’s going to amount to is a tease?

Seems like kind of a dick move. If they wanted to make it for personal reasons fine but don’t tell anyone else.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's a portfolio piece. Nothing wrong with the dude demonstrating what he's capable of doing. It's how you break into the game industry.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nothing wrong with it, but why am I hearing about it?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because you just might happen to be Mr. Naughty Dog himself browsing Lemmy and thinking "wow that's the kind of talent I need on my team!"

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

John Activision, here. I like the cut of this developer's gib. He's hired starting immediately.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You'll have to fight me, Tim Eagames, for him! But not before we join forces to best Samantha Bethesda, our sworn nemesis.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Tim, you son of a bitch! How are you? I thought you'd given up on making games years ago!

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

That's the right answer, he developed the racing quest system by himself, that alone is a very impressive thing

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's what he does.

He remakes old games in modern engines. In particularly at the moment with UE5 it's a fairly good overview of it's capabilities (it's basically magic and is definitely the software that runs star treks holodecks).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It's also a subtle advertisement for his UE5 plugins as well.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why keep such an accomplishment secret?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One thing Disney is known for is relentless legal pursuit of IP theft. Oh, and cartoon movies. Sometimes they do that too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But if he releases it and it's alrdy out there, there's nothing they can do

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Disney would sue him so hard he'd spend the rest of his life in poverty.....

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What if he says he didn't release it, he got compromised and his name isn't in the credits?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then he'd better be able to prove it in court or the mouse would eat him alive...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wouldn't the burden of proof be on them that he purposely released it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You know it’s a lot easier to think about pulling a “Tee hee who released this game? Not me oops.” then it is to be the person staring down the idea of actually having consequences from it.

If Disney sues you, there’s basically no upside.

The downsides are, that even if you win or come to a settlement that you’re on the hook for lawyer’s fees. How many thousands of dollars do you have sitting around to burn on lawyers?

A settlement agreement would of course end with Disney getting the payout, not you. So, decide how much that is.

And that’s all assuming you end up either winning or not going to trial.

If you go to trial for IP infringement, it’s a civil case. That means that Disney doesn’t have to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but only that it is more likely than not you infringed. So if a jury needs to be 99% sure in a criminal trial, they only need to be 51% in a civil trial.

And for a trial you will be deposed, which is sat in a room an interrogated by Disney’s lawyers. And you have to answer their questions and you have to tell the truth. Want to pled the 5th? Guess what, it’s not a criminal trial so pleading the 5th in a civil deposition can be used against you to draw the worst inferences. They will ask if you worked on it, and if you distributed it, and they’ll ask in every way possible so you can “technically tell the truth” while trying to weasel out of it. And if you do lie, and your lie gets caught, you’re toasted.

Sounds fun right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Depends where they sue him but regardless, when Disney's lawyers serve you for x- million you have to lawyer up, that costs big money... can you afford a lawyer that would go up against Disney's legal team...? I couldn't....

Realistic likely hood: out of court settlement for 10s of millions.

Court settlement: who the fuck knows but realistically if your defense rests on 'it wasnt me that leaked it i was hacked' I suspect you best have the receipts to back that up in court and have experts willing to testify under oath...! Regardless of legal precedent and standing copyright law a part of the Mouse's legal team would also be leaning on the politicians, judges and press to make 'an example, bare that in mind....

This is a firm that can hire Info-Sec specialists to prove that he wasn't hacked and the exact path of the data and hold them in contract, well, permanently.... it'd be like going toe-to-toe with the US government only laser focused and far more efficient... would you want to get into a he-said-she-said with the NSA...? No? Imagine if the NSA just wanted to fuck you up...! That's what'd happen... The Mouse would financially cripple him or drive him to suicide...!

Disney is a monopoly with power akin to a nation state when it comes to their industry...!

If people get their hands on this game, via him, his life is pretty much over....

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So then, are you just like poor forever if you lose? 10s of millions seems unrealistic to actually have to pay

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Garnered wages forever...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I learned a lot watching his videos.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Creatives: Here's a showcase of my skills and talents, a portfolio of work I've done that prove this. Here's a tutorial to show how I did it to pass on my knowledge so you can learn from it....

You: FUCKING SHOW OFF!!!1!1 STOP BEING AN ATTENTION WHORE YOU BITCH!!1!!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Because it's stupid as hell for every single individual to do all the work themselves when someone has already done all of it.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remaking Lego Island seems silly when MattKC has already done a lot to get it running on modern PCs, and is in the process of decompiling the binaries.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I watched his Hit and Run remake videos from the beginning, and it's not really about the end product - he made it clear from the beginning that that project was never going to be released.

Mostly, it seems to be about selling his "learn how to make Unreal games" courses and Unreal plugins.

The videos were fun in their own right, to be honest.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah what mattkc and this guys doing are not really the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

I was following the videos from reubs since the beginning, it's wonderful what a single person with passion can do.

When he found another artists to help him, i couldn't belive how professional it looks.

EA should do a deal with disney and hire him and a small team to make this official.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

That seems like a shit ton of work for something that essential doesn’t exist.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Selling it is clearly out of the question; but would such a thing be okay to give away free? Is there even sufficient law and precedent to say one way or the other without a court decision? It's not really a parody or a remix, but it's also not straight up theft. Hell, I don't think I've ever heard of something similar actually coming out before; has anyone ever remastered or duplicated a thing in their own way and released it without any ties to the original content creators? 🤔

I'm fairly certain you could legally get away with a full duplication of the game's layout and mechanics, so long as you didn't use the name or the characters. This does have precedent and happens a lot.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

would such a thing be okay to give away free?

No. Assuming they rebuilt the game in a publicly available game engine, they could release whatever they did to that, but the characters are trademarked, and the game level design and any audio they'd have used would be copyrighted. The fact that you didn't ask for money isn't a defense that would stand up in court.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a potential way around this that has often been used by other projects. You make the original game files a requirement for it to work and you don't distribute any files that include trademarked material directly and instead it uses the original files and modifies/extends them as needed. This has been used for a large number of other projects including things like the Ocarina of Time decompilation project.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a remake that uses new, higher quality assets though, so isn't an option in this case.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It would still qualify as a mod if it required the original game, I'm pretty sure it would be fine to release that way, but it's probably not worth the risk of legal bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) was a fan recreation of Metroid 2 that got Cease and Desist'ed as well as DMCA'd on release. Notably Japan's copyright laws require you to aggressively protect your holdings or else have them forfeited.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy! Hey ya can't buy it Leak! Leak! Leak! Leak!

load more comments
view more: next ›